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Gay
In contemporary usage, the adjective gay usually refers to homosexual people. In earlier usage, the word meant "carefree", "happy", or "bright and showy", though this usage is infrequent today. Gay sometimes also refers to the culture of homosexual individuals, as in "gay history", or to things perceived by others to be typical of gay people, as in "gay music". The word gay is sometimes used to refer to same-sex relationships more generally, as in "gay marriage", although this usage is discouraged by some LGBT supporters: the rationale is that this usage is exclusive of bisexual and transgendered people. While gay applies in some contexts to all homosexual people, the term lesbian is gender-specific: it is used exclusively to describe homosexual women. There is no corresponding word for men, although sometimes "gay" can be used to refer only to men. Etymology History from 1857 illustrating the use of "gay" as a euphemism for being a prostitute. One woman says to the other (who looks glum), "how long have you been gay?" The poster on the wall is for La Traviata, an opera about a courtesan.]] The primary meaning of the word gay has changed dramatically during the 20th century—though the change evolved from earlier usages. It derives via the Old French gai, probably from a Germanic source.Online Etymology Dictionary. (URL accessed April 4, 2006). The word originally meant "carefree", "happy", or "bright and showy" and was very commonly used with this meaning in speech and literature. For example, the title of the 1938 ballet aptly named Gaîté Parisienne ("Parisian Gaiety"), a patchwork compiled from Jacques Offenbach's operettas, illustrates this connotation. The British comic strip Jane was first published in the 1930s and described the adventures of Jane Gay. This did not describe her sexuality (she had plenty of boyfriends), but was a play on Lady Jane Grey. The word started to acquire sexual connotations in the late 17th century, being used with meaning "addicted to pleasures and dissipations". This was by extension from the primary meaning of "carefree": implying "uninhibited by moral constraints". By the late nineteenth century the term "gay life" was a well-established euphemism for prostitution and other forms of extramarital sexual behaviour that were perceived as immoral. The first name Gay is still occasionally encountered, usually as a female name although the spelling is often altered to Gaye. (795th most common in the United States, according to the 1990 US censushttp://www.census.gov/genealogy/names/dist.female.first). It was also used as a male first name. The first name of the popular male Irish television presenter Gabriel Byrne was always abbreviated as "Gay", as in the title of his radio show The Gay Byrne Show. It can also be used as a short form of the female name Gaynell and as a short form of the male names Gaylen and Gaylord. The "Gaiety" was also a common name for places of entertainment. One of Oscar Wilde's favourite venues in Dublin was the Gaiety Theatre; he first appeared there in 1884. Development of modern usage The use of gay to mean homosexual was in origin merely an extension of the word's sexualised connotation of "carefree and uninhibited", which implied a willingness to disregard conventional or respectable sexual mores. Such usage is documented as early as the 1920s. It was initially more commonly used to imply heterosexually unconstrained lifestyles, as for example in the once-common phrase "gay Lothario",Bartleby dictionary or in the title of the book and film [[The Falcon (literary character)| The Gay Falcon]] (1941), which concerns a womanizing detective whose first name is "Gay". Well into the mid 20th century a middle-aged bachelor could be described as "gay" without any implication of homosexuality. A passage from Gertrude Stein's Miss Furr & Miss Skeene (1922) is possibly the first traceable published use of the word to refer to a homosexual relationship, though it is not altogether clear whether she uses the word to mean lesbianism or happiness: The 1929 musical Bitter Sweet by Noel Coward contains another use of the word in a context that strongly implies homosexuality. In the song "Green Carnation", four overdressed, 1890s dandies sing: The song title alludes to Oscar Wilde, who famously wore a green carnation, and whose homosexuality was well known. However, the phrase "gay nineties" was already well-established as an epithet for the decade (a film entitled The Gay Nineties; or, The Unfaithful Husband was released in the same year). The song also drew on familiar satires on Wilde and Aestheticism dating back to Gilbert and Sullivan's Patience (1881). Because of its continuation of these public usages and conventions – in a mainstream musical – the precise connotations of the word in this context remain ambiguous. Other usages at this date involve some of the same ambiguity as Coward's lyrics. Bringing Up Baby (1938) was the first film to use the word gay in apparent reference to homosexuality. In a scene where Cary Grant's clothes have been sent to the cleaners, he must wear a lady's feathery robe. When another character inquires about his clothes, he responds "Because I just went gay...all of a sudden!"http://xroads.virginia.edu/~UG03/comedy/bringingupbaby.html However, since this was a mainstream film at a time when the use of the word to refer to homosexuality would still be unfamiliar to most film-goers, the line can also be interpreted to mean "I just decided to do something frivolous". There is much debate about what Grant meant with the ad-lib (the line was not in the script). The word continued to be used with the dominant meaning of "carefree", as evidenced by the title of The Gay Divorcee (1934), a musical film about a heterosexual couple. It was originally to be called The Gay Divorce after the play on which it was based, but the Hays Office determined that while a divorcee may be gay, it would be unseemly to allow a divorce to appear so. By the mid-century "gay" was well-established as an antonym for "straight" (which had connotations of respectability), and to refer to the lifestyles of unmarried and or unattached people. Other connotations of frivolousness and showiness in dress ("gay attire") led to association with camp and effeminacy. This association no doubt helped the gradual narrowing in scope of the term towards its current dominant meaning, which was at first confined to subcultures. The subcultural usage started to become mainstream in the 1960s, when gay became the term predominantly preferred by homosexual men to describe themselves. Gay was the preferred term since other terms, such as "queer" were felt to be derogatory. "Homosexual" was perceived as excessively clinical: especially since homosexuality was at that time designated as a mental illness, and "homosexual" was used by the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM) to denote men affected by this "mental illness". Homosexuality was no longer classified as an illness in the DSM by 1973, but the clinical connotation of the word was already embedded in society. One of the many characters invented by 1950s TV comic Ernie Kovacs was a "gay-acting" poet named Percy Dovetonsils. In one of his poems (which were always read to an imaginary off-screen character named "Bruce") he mentions the expression "gay caballero". By 1963, the word "gay" was known well enough by the straight community to be used by Albert Ellis in his book The Intelligent Woman's Guide to Man-Hunting. By 1968 mainstream audiences were expected to recognise the double entendre in the ultra-camp musical entitled Springtime for Hitler: a gay romp with Adolf and Eva at Berchtesgaden — which formed part of the plot of the film The Producers. The camp implications of the concept were explicit in the pastiche of Coward's style epitomised by the title song: Parts of speech Gay was originally used purely as an adjective ("he is a gay man" or "he is gay"). Gay can also be used as a plural noun: "Gays are opposed to that policy"; although some dislike this usage, it is common particularly in the names of various organizations such as Parents, Families and Friends of Lesbians and Gays (PFLAG) and Children Of Lesbians And Gays Everywhere (COLAGE). It is sometimes used as a singular noun, as in "he is a gay", such as in its use (partly to comic effect) by the Little Britain comedy character Dafydd Thomas (a gay man who believes himself "the only gay in the village" despite abundant evidence to the contrary). , a popular gay village in Vancouver.]] Aaron Hazen Aaron Hazen grew up in a small town of Wisconsin. Now Aaron wasn't always very straight if you know what I mean.... Aarons gay. hahahah. anyways Aaron would try to take peoples pants off all the time i mean wow! He's the hugest dick i've ever seen and I've seen some huge dicks! But one day at school, while i was looking hot, Aaron decide to split his banana into three peices now this wouldn't be to odd in front of Logan, if Aarons pants weren't down at the time. Yes that right folks, right there in school and it was pretty gross i mean i couldnt watch George Lopez that night! Folk etymologies It has been claimed that "gay" is an acronym of "Good As You" , but this is a backronym (based on false etymology). More offensively, the word has been reinterpreted as an acronym for "Got Aids Yet?" http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/15170951/site/newsweek/page/2/ Another folk etymology refers to Gay Street, a small street in the West Village of New York City — a nexus of homosexual culture. The term also seems, from documentary evidence, to have existed in New York as a code word in the 1940s, where the question, "Are you gay?" would denote more than it might have seemed to outsiders. Common usage Overview article: Terminology of homosexuality * Gay is used as an adjective to describe sexual orientation and is usually chosen instead of homosexual as an identity label. * Gay sex is used to describe sexual acts between or among people of the same sex or gender, regardless of their sexual orientation. * Gay is used to describe the "gay community" by both insiders and the mainstream media. * Gay is sometimes used to describe an object of particular flamboyance or camp. * Gay can be used as a nondescript, derogatory comment towards a person or object. (Ex: That movie was so gay!) * Other connotations can vary widely based upon speaker and situation. Sexual orientation Sexual orientation, behaviour, and self-identification are not necessarily aligned in a clear-cut fashion for a given individual (See sex for a discussion of sex and gender.) Most people consider gay and homosexual to be synonyms. This is how, in fact, the Oxford English Dictionary defines it. However, some consider gay to be a matter of self-identification, while homosexual refers to sexual orientation. If a person has had same-sex sexual encounters but does not self-identify as gay, terms such as 'closeted', 'discreet', or 'bi-curious' may be applied. Conversely, a person may identify as gay without engaging in homosexual sex. Possible choices include identifying as gay socially while choosing to be celibate or while anticipating a first homosexual experience. Further, a bisexual person can also identify as "gay" but others might consider gay and bisexual to be mutually exclusive. There are some who are drawn to the same-sex and may not have sex and also not identify as gay, these could have the term 'asexual' applied even though an 'asexual' generally can mean no attraction and includes heterosexual attraction that is not sufficient to engage in sex or where the sex act is not desirable even though titillation may occur. Finally, there are some who may want to identify as gay that are not technically gay but have some event in their life or gender transformation or who otherwise feel they fit in no other identity. Self-identification Self-identification of one's sexual orientation is becoming far more commonplace in areas of increased social acceptance, but many are either reluctant to self-identify publicly or even privately to themselves. The process is fairly complex, and many groups related to gay people cite heterosexism and homophobia as leading obstacles for those who would otherwise self-identify. Selecting the appropriate term Some people reject the term homosexual as an identity-label because they find it too clinical-sounding. They believe it is too focused on physical acts rather than romance or attraction, or too reminiscent of the era when homosexuality was considered a mental illness. Conversely, some people find the term gay to be offensive or reject it as an identity-label because they perceive the cultural connotations to be undesirable or because of the negative connotations of the slang usage of the word. According to the Safe Schools Coalition of Washington's Glossary for School Employees: The term gay is used to describe both same-sex male and same-sex female relations, although it is more commonly applied to men. More rarely, gay is used as a shorthand for LGBT: lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender. Some transgender individuals find their inclusion in this larger grouping to be offensive. Gay community The notion of the gay community is complex and slightly controversial. Just as the word "gay" is sometimes used as shorthand for LGBT, so "gay community" is sometimes a synonym for "LGBT community." In other cases, the speaker may be referring only to gay men. Some people (including many mainstream American journalists) interpret the phrase "gay community" to mean "the population of LGBT people". Some LGBT people are relatively isolated, geographically or socially, from other LGBT people, or don't feel their social connections to their LGBT friends are different from those they have with straight friends. As a result, some analysts question the notion of sharing a "community" with people one has never actually met (whether in person or remotely). But other advocates insist that all LGBT people (and perhaps their allies) share political and social interests that make them part of a global community, in one way or another. Hate crime against gays "Sexual orientation remains the third-highest recorded bias crime in our country, which underscores that anti-gay hate crimes are a very real problem the US," state Joe Solmonese (President of Human Rights Campaign). http://www.gay.com/news/article.html?2006/10/17/2 Famous gay people FamousAndGay.com has a semi-complete list of famous gay names current and historical. Descriptor The term gay can also be used as an adjective to describe things related to gay people or things which are part of gay culture. For example, while a gay bar is not itself homosexual, using gay as an adjective to describe the bar indicates that the bar is either gay-oriented, caters primarily to a gay clientèle, or is otherwise part of gay culture. Using it to describe an object, such as an item of clothing, suggests that it is particularly flamboyant, often on the verge of being gaudy and garish. This usage pre-dates the association of the term with homosexuality, but has acquired different connotations since the modern usage developed. Using the term gay as an adjective where the meaning is akin to "related to gay people, culture, or homosexuality in general" is a widely accepted use of the word. By contrast, using gay in the pejorative sense, to describe something solely as negative, can cause offence. Pejorative non-sexualized usage When used with a derisive attitude (e.g. "that was so gay"), the word gay is pejorative. The Times (June 6 2006, p.3) comments that while retaining its other meanings, it has also acquired "a widespread current usage" amongst young people, to mean "lame" (also an epithet for a marginalised group, namely disabled people) or "rubbish". This pejorative usage has its origins in the late 1970s, when homosexuality was more widely seen as negative by a majority of people. Beginning in the 1980s and especially in the late 1990s, the usage as a generic insult became common among young people, who may or may not link the term to homosexuality, especially when directed at inanimate objects. This practice is frowned upon in some communities that seek to ensure respect for people of all sexual orientations, and is considered by some to be on par with ethnic slurs. Many defenders of the word's pejorative usage choose to spell it "ghey" to avoid any sexual connotations. Critics object to this change of spelling, often comparing it to the use of words like "knigger" or "nigga" for nigger to evade accusations of racism. A 2006 BBC ruling by the Board of Governors over the use of the word in this context by Chris Moyles on his Radio 1 show, "I don't want that one, it's gay", stated that: Notes References *1995. The Merriam-Webster New Book of Word Histories, Merriam-Webster, 189-191. ISBN 0-87779-603-3. *Harper, Douglas (2001). [http://www.etymonline.com/index.php?term=gay Online Etymology Dictionary: gay]. URL accessed 13 February 2006. See also *Anti-gay slogan *Bisexuality *Civil rights *Coming out *Dyke (lesbian) *Faggot (epithet) *Gay pride *Homosexuality *Lesbian *LGBT social movements *List of gay, lesbian or bisexual people *List of LGBT-related organizations *List of LGBT-related topics *List of lesbian, gay, bisexual or transgender-related films *Pride flag *Pro-gay slogans and symbols *Queer *Religion and sexuality *Same-sex marriage *Sexual orientation Category:LGBT ru:Гей